Christmas and beyond

My new toy from Rick



The girls working on their birthday cake Jesus.


It's a Christmas eve tradition but now we have to work around the oldest ones work schedule.


Jasmine and I went to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader while the older ones were at work.

The boys working on their birthday cake for Jesus.



Finished cake


Finished cake













We did present differently this year to cut wayyyy down on the number of packages to open. I loved it : )


On Christmas eve instead of all the kids giving each other presents, each child who wanted to bought a gift to be shared by all the siblings. Tyler bought a dance game for the Wii. He spent a lot on it, and I think the kids will get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Jessica, Jeff and Jasmine bought board games and Kaleb even bought a pack of cookies!


I asked each person to tell me three or four larger gifts they wanted rather than many smaller ones so that I could put one present under the tree for each person and have it be something he or she really wanted. If they wanted two or three less expensive ones instead, then I wrapped or bagged them all together. Everyone also had one gift from my sister and one from my brother. They got a Wii game and board game to share from my mom and gift cards from Rick's parents.

It was a lot less packages number wise and everyone got something they really wanted.






We do make-your-own pizzas for Christmas lunch. Kayla started eating before I could cut hers into fourths.









All the kids.




All of us.



Jessica playing mindflex. It wasn't a Christmas gift.







Eating broccoli soup while watching the church's Christmas program on TV.

This is what Jasmine's neck looks like right now. There are some kind of balloons in there that will slowly be expanded to separate the skin. Then it will be pulled back to remove the webbing.

Today my first cousin Jim is stopping by on his way to visit other relatives. Since he grew up on the mission field and has spent his adult life on the mission field, I don't really know him well. Some of you may recognize this picture from the news in 2001 when the plane he and his wife were on was shot down over Peru and his wife and baby daughter were killed.



This picture and the one under it were taken a few years later at my mom's house. I haven't actually seen him since 1995 when his son Cory had just turned one and Adam was almost one. They are about two months apart in age and were adopted the same year.

Now Jim and his second wife Stacie have two additional children.

Unfortunately none of their children will be with them when they stop by today. They are with other relatives. Jim is a missionary to Mozambique right now but is in the states to take care of some family matters.

It's rare that we are able to get together with any family and rarer still for any to visit here.